The Bread on My Stove

Pending a visitation

to my local big box food

pharmacy clothing garden store

you know the place

where bread

appeals browned and airy

in the plastic socks

tied neatly with a length

of papered wire

red blue or green

butter and jam awaits

the smell of end season

violets onions and oranges

that boost the odor

of unscrubbed

or tar-fingered patrons

the beep of the oven timer

in its high-pitch regularity

announces that a poorly crafted

inadequately covered

in the rising phase

pile of crusty dough

not really a loaf

in a loaf pan

but on an oaf pan

dough slammed onto a flat

blistered and mottled cookie sheet

forged incomplete

through a heated cycle

to the point

where it might be edible

across the kitchen it cools

in its appearance of a pillow

cased in pale protuberances

a bread sandpaper

only slightly brown

at each end

just enough to rake a tongue

with its cheap flavors

of salt and olive oil

that's it

any more images

and I'll be forced to eat

that crappy loaf

Barry G. Wick